


pick up from the last place we left off

by tosca1390



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:03:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think you should keep this."</p><p>“I don’t know what I would do with it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	pick up from the last place we left off

**Author's Note:**

> Set within the episode where Soul Society makes the movies, and Rukia is in a maid outfit. Because _really_.

*

His fingers catch at her apron strings as they walk back to the compound, pulling her closer to him.

Renji and Ishida are ahead, arguing over editing techniques and which frames and shots to use, with Sado just shaking his head and Orihime bursting with laughter and chatter. The sky is cloudless, a deep blue. She feels as if she is in the World of the Living again, on her way back from school to Ichigo’s home; there is a lightness between them all that is reminiscent of those simpler times, before Aizen and Bounts and the Hollows inside.

Perhaps that was the point of this, in reality, she thinks as she glances up at Ichigo. They hang back in the rear of the group, flushed from the escape from the ninjas.

“Renji’s an idiot,” he says at last, voice low. His eyes trail over her and she can feel the breath hitch in her chest.

“Sometimes he can be a little overenthusiastic. I’ll give you that,” she says.

Ichigo’s mouth twists into a half-smile. His fingers curl in the white lacy apron strings. “Where did you find this?”

Warmth rises at the back of her neck. “Around,” she murmurs, looking ahead.

“It’s a little… meek for you, don’t you think?”

She glares at him from the corner of her eye. “I am a maid _cop_ , Ichigo.”

He grins, face splitting with the curve of his mouth. “You do know that makes no sense.”

“Films are an invention of your world, not mine,” she retorts.

His hair glints brightly in the sunlight as he throws back his head, barking out a laugh. “You got the plot of a _maid cop_ from the few movies you’ve seen in my world? That’s pathetic.”

“At least it was creative!” she retorts.

Smiling, he shakes his head. “The ending, it was good, too,” he adds after a moment, toying with the flimsy ends of her apron strings.

Heat flushes at her collarbones and her throat. She is glad now for the high neck of the uniform, as scratchy and uncomfortable as it is. “Yes. Well, we can’t have the hero die.”

“As much as your brother tried,” he mutters.

She bits the inside of her lip on a smile. “He was only teasing you.”

Ichigo slants a look her way, mouth quirked. “The hell he was!”

“Well, you have to work for the happy endings. Isn’t that right?” she asks before she can catch herself, the words tumbling from her tongue like water.

He stops, in the shadows of the eaves of the compound. His grip on her apron shudders her to a halt, her shoulder brushing his. The breeze curls through the trees and between them, warm and soft. “I don’t know if I like working that hard,” he says, voice settled low in his throat.

Wetting her lips, she tilts her head up towards his, blinking against the sunlight. “That’s typical, coming from you,” she teases.

He shrugs, tugging on the apron. The movement brings her even closer to him. Warmth radiates from his body and against and into her skin. He is always warm, even in Soul Society. She remembers the feel of his hand on her skin when in her gigai, the shock of warmth against the cold shell of her human form. “I work for what I want.”

“I know,” she says, a lump rising in her throat.

Silence settles and thickens between them, heavy in the sweet-smelling air. She toes at the dusty ground with her shoe, ducking her head for a moment as his fingers continue to twist and twine in her apron strings. There is a hard ache in her middle, curling out towards all her limbs and nerves.

“I think you should keep this,” he says at last, color spotting high in his cheekbones.

She swallows thickly, smoothing her hands over the full skirt. “I don’t know what I would do with it.”

“I’m sure you’d think of something,” he murmurs.

Their gazes meet for a brief moment before they begin to walk once more.

She’s sure he could think of something, too.

 

*

“Where’ve you been?”

Rukia pauses in the midst of sliding the door to her quarters shut. The track creaks, the door smooth under her fingertips. She thinks she ought to be more surprised to find Ichigo in her quarters, flat on his back on her bed pallet with his hands propped behind his head. She’s not, though.

“I was helping them edit a little,” she says, shutting the door completely and flipping the latch.

Ichigo turns his head to watch her, eyes dark in the fading evening light. “A girl of many talents.”

“I was watching, mostly. You look great, running away from Byakuya like a coward,” she retorts, voice light.

He laughs shortly, eyes glancing over her. “No maid outfit?”

Her fingers smooth across her standard black robes. “It wasn’t appropriate.”

“What about in here?” he asks, sitting up and planting his bare feet on the floor. She can see the tension in the line of his throat and the clench of his hands. He is nervous, she realized with a sharp thud of her heart.

“You mean, just wear it in my room?” she asks after a moment.

He huffs sharply, a smile twisting his mouth. “It’s funny. I don’t think of this as your room.”

She walks forward slowly, stopping just a few feet from him. The shutters are thrown wide open to let in the cool sweet evening air, the sounds of the courtyard below muffled. “Well, it is.”

“No,” he says quickly, looking up at her, bright orange bangs falling across his brow. “Your room is mine. At my house.”

Her fingers curl into fists at her sides, knuckles rubbing against the smooth fabric. Here, they have all but avoided the subject of who is going back when and where, and yet he brings it up easily enough. They do not talk about these things, the serious moments, the decisions of their lives; she prefers to jab and barb, and he prefers to use humor as a deflection. It’s the pattern they fell into from the start, and she thinks it won’t change very much. She finds that comforting. Out of all the people she knows and will know, she wants Ichigo to stay just as he is.

“Right now, this is my room, you idiot,” she mutters at last, poking at his furrowed brow with a single index finger.

He catches her hand in his, his thumb smoothing across her knuckles. She holds a breath in her chest like a smile. “Is the outfit here?”

“What does that have to do with my room?” she asks, flushing at the throat as his fingers twine into hers.

“Because I want you to wear it in this room, and in my room, and in any room we’re in. Alone,” he says with a smirk.

She lets out a slow breath, tightening her fingers around his. There have been a few moments between them, secret and unspoken of; after his mother’s death day, with just her mouth on his for a comfort, and then days after her almost-execution when she was angry at him and he was just glad to see her alive and it was just their hands and mouths in the valleys and expanses of scarred pale skin. She thinks of these moments every so often, when she is in battle and when she is not; they give her pause and they give her strength.

She will have another to add, after tonight.

“Right now?” she asks, because it has been a silly few days, and right now there is nothing between them but light. For now there is no threat of imminent death, and she likes it, likes seeing him easy around the eyes and mouth.

His tongue darts out, wetting his lips. His other hand falls to her hip, fingers rucking into the fabric of her robe. “If you have it.”

She does.

*

Putting it back on is awkward. What happens after she does is everything but.

She pokes her head out of her closet, tucking her hair behind her ears. He waits patiently on her bed, sitting at attention much like he would in school. His hair sticks up wildly at the ends, his hands flat on his knees.

“You’re an idiot,” she says for the fifth time since ducking into the closet.

He grins. “Come on out, Rukia,” he drawls. “You said you would.”

She can feel the flush crawling up her legs, spreading all over her skin. She huffs and slides the closet door open all the way to step out into the darkening room. The light is purple-blue, dusky and shading in all the corners of the small room. Her fingers catch in the lace of the hem, tugging at the skirt. It’s different, wearing it just for him in the confines of a room. In front of the others, it was a joke. Now, his gaze thickens the air in the room.

“You knew how you’d look in this,” he says after a moment, voice rough in his throat.

“Maybe I did,” she says, lifting her chin defiantly. “But it was also fun.”

“It still is fun,” he murmurs, mouth turned down at the corners.

She rolls her eyes, planting her hand on her hips. The fabric of the outfit scratches at her skin. “Are you happy now, fool?” she asks sharply.

He pushes off the bed and approaches her. In the darkening room, only the pale skin of his face and the brightness of his hair stands out; the rest of him is a broad swipe of black robes. She always forgets how tall he is, compared to her; she fits into the hollow of his chest, no higher.

His hands settle at her sides, spanning the length of her ribs. He nudges her back against the closet door, his thigh a heavy warm weight between hers. She curls her fingers into the collar of his robes, arching as her back hits the sturdy wood. “I almost feel like I could ask you to clean for me and you’d have to do it,” he teases, leaning his head in towards hers.

She grazes his jaw with her lips, sliding her hands up to the nape of his neck. “Good luck with that,” she drawls as their mouths knock together. He is all warmth enveloping her, his tongue slick against hers.

“A man can dream,” he murmurs against her mouth, teeth grazing her lips. He lifts her up against him with ease. Her thighs settle at either side of his hips, the skirt crinkling and shifting between their stomachs as he presses her back against the door.

Shaking her head, she twines her fingers into the thick hair at the nape of his neck. “You have sisters to clean your room for you.”

“You would bring them up now? God, Rukia, you are really not good at this,” he mutters against her mouth, breath hot against her flushed cheek.

“Shut up,” she half-sighs as she licks into his mouth, her thumbs pressing hard to the pulse points near his jaw. She can feel him half-hard through his robes and against her thigh. An ache swells through her, curling her bare toes.

“We never shut up,” he murmurs, holding her weight against his chest as he walks her back to the bed.

“But we never talk,” she retorts, running her nails along the line of his throat.

He hums in the back of his throat, the sound low and resonant on her mouth. The night is quiet, enveloping them in soft cool air and silence. He lays her down on her bed and stretches out next to her, his fingers sliding under the puffed full skirt to her bare inner thighs. His mouth is close to hers, lips chapped against her skin. “Why would we talk when you can wear this and we can do things like this?” he says, all cheek and a slow drawl.

She shifts onto her side and hitches her thigh across his hip. “I hate this thing,” she grumbles against his mouth.

“A buzzkill to the end,” he says with a laugh, his fingers moving to the zipper and sliding it down from the base of her shoulders to the small of her back.

In moments, the cool air crests across her bare skin as her fingers work at his robes, gaping them wide open as his belt drops to the floor with a heavy dull thump. Soon it is just the weight of his body pressing over her, his fingers between her thighs, thumb stuttering at her clit as she moans low in her throat. Her hands travel over his scarred skin as his mouth catches at hers. She tucks herself into the hollow of his chest as her thighs fall open and he fills all the negative space between them. His hand spans across the line of her jaw and cheek as he curls a third finger inside of her. They have never done this enough to make it the same every time, but it _happens_ , and for her that is enough.

“ _Rukia_ ,” he murmurs against her mouth, his teeth biting at her bottom lip. “Rukia –“

“Stop talking,” she gasps, her fingers insistent and even around his hard length. “Just – stop –“

His eyes meet hers as he slides his fingers from her, leaving her wet and wanting. His hand is sticky and warm against the bare skin of her inner thigh, a welcome weight. His bangs brush against her brow, a shock of saturated color in the dusky light. A smile curls at his mouth as he shifts and moves within her. She is tight and slick; her muscles tense up and down the length of her body, but his mouth softens and moves along the line of her throat, his hand spanning the flat of her stomach and lower. His thumb finds its way back to her clit, pressing just so.

She digs her fingers into the broad expanse of his shoulders and arches into him, heat flushing her body a soft pink. His mouth hovers near the scars on her sternum left by Aizen all those months ago; she can feel the heaviness in his muscles, the guilt lingering on his tongue even as he bites at the thin skin of her collarbones. The smell of him, of her, of sweat, of trees, lingers in the air between them.

He whispers her name again, into the hollow of her throat. It’s low and lost, hard on her ears as he moves inside her with a care unnatural to them. His body tenses over her, the weight of him pressing her into the bed.

Everything comes back to them, she thinks as her fingers fall across the rises and knitting of scars across his back and chest. She has to bite back tears as she comes, a slow nearly painful shuddering that leaves her wrecked and wanting more.

*

“Do you want a tip for the room service?” is the first thing Ichigo says, his mouth lingering near her jaw. His arm rests across her side and stomach as she lay with her back to his chest. The room is fully dark now, with just the faintest slants of moonlight stretching across the wood floor.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, slapping his hand.

She can feel him smile, his lips moving lazily against her skin. “So says you.”

“And this is _my_ room, Ichigo. I’m pretty sure if anyone was going to be tipping, it would be me.”

“I won’t say no.”

She elbows him in the ribs, grinning as he groans, a sharp press of air against her hair and ear. “Just remember my brother is suspicious of you,” she mutters, turning onto her back to look at his face. “You thought that was bad, during the film scenes? If he finds out about this –“

“Are you trying to kill me?” Ichigo all but screeches, face ashen in the dim light.

She laughs, shutting her eyes and biting her lip as his hands smooth down the sides of her ribs and stomach, towards her hips. “Just saying.”

He leans in and presses his mouth to hers, soft and warm. “Going to kick me out?” he asks against her lips, an odd sort of insecurity curling through his voice.

Rukia trails her fingers along the line of his jaw as his hands settle at her waist. She ought to, she knows. There’s a risk to keeping him so close, in her bed and in her heart. But they crossed that line ages ago. She is too content and happy for the moment to care for tomorrow. It’s a strange feeling for her, for them both.

“Not yet,” she says at last, her lips brushing his with every word.

*


End file.
